Thoughts of a Vampire
by Salric
Summary: The Various and Sundry Deep Thoughts of one Alexander Smith of Clan Ventrue, of the Domain of New York City.
1. A Horrible Welcome

Note: There is no such thing as the Camarilla, vampires, Hunters, werewolves, so on and so forth, except in the imaginations the people who play or design the games. I'm one of the ones who plays, but I do not own any of the above concepts, nor do I make any profit off using them.

* * *

You know, most people who know about vampires (barring Hunters, werewolves, and other vampires) see becoming a vampire as something simple. You're an ordinary guy or girl, you function fairly well in society. One evening, this odd-looking guy (or girl) pushes you into an alleyway, bites your neck, drinks some blood, then feeds you some of their blood. You fall asleep, wake up, and poof! you're a vampire and you can do all this cool shit and the only rules are "don't go out in daytime" and "be sneaky." Right?

Wrong as _fuck_. First of all, vampire candidates are almost _never_ ordinary. We don't _want_ ordinary people. We want people who are a cut above the average in some way that our clan likes. Brujah like smart brawlers, Ventrue like amazing business skills and leadership ability, Malkavians like other crazy people, etcetera, etcetera. Secondly, who the hell assumes you're doing well in society at your Embrace? Even if you aren't picked for a Malkavian, we don't want the popular sort either. We like the cold, the ruthless, the ones the minimum number will miss if they "die" suddenly or are permanently "called away on business." God knows I wasn't in the best of shape when I was Embraced. I was totally isolated, nocturnal, rich but not caring, halfway to being an alcoholic, and half-suicidal but too scared to _do_ anything about it. Why do you think I welcomed the Embrace so much? I found out what Death's like, and while it wasn't unpleasant, I'm rather comfortable with my existence. I also found a bunch of people who trust me about as much as I trust them.

Which is to say, about as far as I could throw a Boeing 747. So that's perfect, I'm in my society.

Okay, granted, the bit about the odd-looking person shoving you in an alleyway happens more often than I care to admit, but it sure as hell isn't how it always or even usually happens. It's just the way the people with no imagination or care for the childe's welfare handle things.

You know, the ones who end up as horrible sires and get killed by the Accounting. Usually, they're the ones who had such sires themselves and somehow survived. Getting a little off topic though.

When you're Embraced, you don't fall asleep. You _die_. You fall, fully expecting never to wake up. Then you do. Hungry. Every vampire's first feeling isn't "cool, I'm a vampire." It's "I NEED FOOD NOW!" And the Hunger never truly dies. Next impression is the Beast, it's awake, roaring mad at sharing a body with a human mind, and it pushes you. You'd damn well better push back. Then, finally, once you've eaten and gotten the Beast to shut up to a quiet mutter, you can start thinking about how cool it is that you're a vampire. Until someone tells you the _real_ rules. And after they drill the Traditions in your head the first time (and there will be many times until you have ingrained them in your nonfunctional _liver_) your impression should be "oh, _shit_."

And that is when you truly realize what a vampire is. That moment when you think "oh, shit," that's pretty much the most eloquent way to describe your situation. Have fun with it. My sire told me a very wise thing. There are two kinds of paranoia: total and insufficient. Don't trust anyone, because they're sure as hell not going to trust you to do anything but give them openings to jump on. Welcome to the _real_ world. Things do go bump in the night, and it's time for you to be one of us.


	2. My Life and Early Unlife

**My Life and Early Unlife**

Alex Smith

I am Alexander Paul Smith, of Clan Ventrue, Camarilla member in good standing in the Domain of New York City, childe of Jonas Rogers, the childe of Luke Jones. For the confused, I am a vampire. A vampire who has responsibilities but no real status in our world, mind you, but I am a vampire nonetheless. My closer acquaintances, the ones who would be friends if I trusted anyone, call me Alex. Jonas still calls me Alexander for some reason. Everyone else calls me Mr. Smith. Such a common name, but blending into the background isn't such a bad thing in my social circles. It can keep you alive.

I have somewhat long curly black hair, blue-grey eyes, and glasses that I purposely keep dirty to make it harder for people to read things from my eyes. When I was fifteen, a girl two years older than me told me that I had very expressive eyes. A consolation prize, since I'd just confessed my "undying love" to her. I was a social idiot as a teenager.

Other than the glasses, I really have no distinguishing facial features. In college, I was told I looked like an older version of Harry Potter, without the scar, but that's about it. I've read the books. My eyes are the wrong color, too.

I do have other identifying marks. Scars. No birthmarks, just scars. If you're not a vampire, you'd probably think I have a pair of fang marks on my neck. I don't. The Embrace doesn't leave scars. No, these were earned otherwise. The ones on my chest are from summer camp in between ninth and tenth grades. Sliding down twenty feet of loose, sharp rocks on your stomach isn't the best thing for you. Nothing deep, but the sheer number of them left me with a few scars. The ones on my wrists, about halfway up, are barely visible anymore. They didn't come from the rockslide. They were already there. Let's just say that I had major issues in sixth grade, that I owned a switchblade for three weeks during that time period, and that I don't have the issues or the knife anymore. I don't like thinking about it, and I like talking about it even less. I do carry a pocketknife now, but only since my Embrace. It's ridiculous, because it's practically useless as a weapon, but it still provides me with a certain inane comfort to have it.

What about my friends and family? That's a joke. I have a mortal family--mortal parents--and while I'm legally alive, I cut myself off from them almost a year before Jonas Embraced me. I suppose Jonas is my family, and I can trust him somewhat, since he'll lose _dignitas_ if I become a disappointment to the clan. Friends, however, are another matter. I have no friends. Friends are weaknesses; friends require you to trust. I don't trust anyone enough to call them my friends. My family, my very dysfunctional family, is the Camarilla of New York City, but none of them are my friends. Acquaintances, allies, poker buddies, social circles, people to whom I act friendly while I wonder what part of my back they want to stick a knife in. I prefer the ones who are honest about it.

I was born on Long Island, a little over an hour's drive from New York, _not_ including traffic. I went to a preppy elementary school in the city, a preppy middle school in the city, and a preppy high school in the city. By tenth grade, Mother and Father had rented me a very nice apartment in Manhattan for Sunday through Thursday nights, by the start of senior year the building went co-op, and they bought the apartment, and I lived there on my own seven days a week, going back out to the old house for holidays and my birthday. You might think that I became a party boy, but I didn't, although I claim with no hesitation that I had one of the best liquor cabinets of my class. The fact of the matter was that I usually partook of said liquor alone or, in the company of one or two others. No drunken orgies for me. Once or twice, this company was female, I admit, but it wasn't exactly romantic. Morbid teenage lust is about the only way to describe it, and I'm going to say no more on _that_ subject. I was accepted Early Decision to Columbia University. The apartment was a present for high school graduation from Mother and Father. Uncle Robert gave me five thousand dollars to invest, told me he'd collect at my graduation, no interest. I paid him back by the end of the summer. I already knew what I wanted, declared an Economics major by the end of freshman year. I made my first million by the time I graduated; rather ironically, I passed that mark two days after I formalized breaking off from my parents completely. I went to business school at Columbia, too, for about a year, haven't finished it. The Embrace kind of got in the way. I still live in that apartment that my mother and father gave me, but I don't bring people to it. It's changed now. The windows have _very_ thick steel shutters on them that block the sunlight quite effectively when I need to sleep. The liquor cabinet is empty. I can't use it anymore. The kitchen is the least visited part of the apartment. But it's my haven, more than my haven. It's my _home_.

By now, you may have guessed that while I've wanted to sit down and write this down for a while, if only for my own benefit, I've had a little trouble getting started. To get past this, I found one of those soul-searching quizzes on the Internet, and I'm answering the questions, although there are no results to get. It's just a "thirty questions you should ask yourself" kind of thing. This one is "Where do you go when you're angry?" Well, to answer it, inside my head. I point out to myself all the illogical things I would do if I let the anger take over, and the ways I can get back later at whomever or whatever has caused my anger. I prefer my revenge colder than I am.

I shouldn't put my greatest fear in writing, since it's not one I'll ever tell anyone, but I'm going to take a chance here and give this a shot. I'm afraid of simply being _used_ for the rest of my life. I'm afraid of always being a servant, never gaining power and respect. That's what I'm afraid of. I don't mind not being top of the heap, as long as I'm respected.

My other greatest fear is Final Death. I'm still young, still young enough that I even look my age. I haven't seen centuries slip away like days. I haven't buried my mortal great-grandchildren like some. I don't even have any mortal _children_, let alone that. I wouldn't be ready to die even if I were mortal. But I never want to die. I want to have meaning, have existence, for eternity. That's why I accepted the Embrace.

Until very recently, God and I hadn't been on speaking terms since shortly after I started college. My parents raised me as an evangelical Christian, and I do believe in God and Jesus, but I couldn't find it in myself to have faith that He cared enough about _me_ individually to save _my_ immortal soul. I always did believe in my immortal soul, but I sinned enough that I considered myself a lost cause in His eyes. Maybe I wouldn't be relegated to the deepest pits of Hell, but Heaven wasn't going to be embracing me with open arms, either. I've already told you I was fairly morbid by my senior year in high school, and that continued. I was cynical. Not skeptical, just not willing to give myself to God for a form of immortality unless I was sure He was going to give it to me. Those feelings have thawed somewhat, and now I'm feeling the twinges of hope that He'll take me back, but I'm still worried.

I met Jonas Rogers about a month after I made the millionaire mark. He was in business and had noticed my rather meteoric rise. He took me under his wing as a protégé. I'd already gone mostly nocturnal by this time; 4 PM to 8 AM was my usual day and business school was night school for the simple reason that I liked the night. He pretended to have a similar schedule, for different reasons that later became obvious. Business wasn't all we talked about. Life, death, religion, myths, all these and more were fair game. And then he brought up the subject of immortality. It was a hypothetical question, an "if you could have it would you take it" question. He spoke of downsides, hypothetical ones. Basically, hinting around the edges of it but never saying it outright, he asked me if I'd be willing to become a vampire. I saw that, of course, but I still thought he was being hypothetical. Still, I considered the upsides, the downsides he described to me (and he did imply most of them), and I came to a conclusion. Yes. I would take it. It became a lot less hypothetical really fast. He showed me his fangs, and asked me again. I had second thoughts, but I proudly stood, presented my throat, and said "Yes." I've had some regrets, some things I've missed, but I don't think I would have changed my mind if I'd known what I know now. I want to exist forever, and may God have pity on my soul.

The next question on the quiz is whether I have a secret. Obviously, the people who wrote this haven't heard of the Masquerade. Even if I did have a secret beyond that, though, I wouldn't share it in writing. I don't really have any since the whole cross thing was revealed to the entire Camarilla (thank you _so_ much, Sarah Capone), but I wouldn't share them. The only people whose hands this is likely to fall into besides my own are vampires, and why on earth would I trust them?

Now I'm supposed to say "what makes me laugh out loud." What makes me laugh out loud is a good joke, preferably not at my expense. As long as it's someone else besides me, or a joke made in good fun, and as long as it's well said with a good delivery, I'll laugh. I'm still pretty human, especially when it comes to my sense of humor, although I still have that morbid touch that I developed when I was seventeen. I'm not some insane idiot with a Dr. Evil laugh just because I'm a vampire, for goodness' sake.

Skipping to the next question, never been in love, well, not truly in love. Thought I was a few times, but I wasn't. How do I know? Because the ones that I thought I was in love with who rejected me never left me with a broken heart. Love has never exactly been one of my goals. What do I need with love? I'm a _vampire_. Eventually, it's almost inevitable that I will lose my ability to love to the Beast. You think I don't know that? You think I haven't met older vampires who are cold and dead and inhuman? I have. Love dies with the reproductive organs. It just takes us a while for that to settle in. The closest thing we have left is the freaking Blood Bond, and I don't feel like giving someone else that level of control over me, even if I have it over them too. Who needs love? I have myself, and that's all I hope to ever need.

Now we're on to the more "unconventional questions." What's in my fridge right now? Nothing, I unplugged the stupid thing a week after my Embrace. It's useless to me now, and I don't have mortal guests. I don't have Kindred guests if I can help it. Members of Clan Ventrue are the only ones I let see my haven. I've been considering getting a ghoul, which means that I'd have to plug the fridge back in. Ghouls need to eat things besides blood. What's on my bedroom floor? A little dust, and not much else. I'm fairly tidy besides the dust. What's on my nightstand? A clock radio and a little lamp. Nightstand is a bad name for that for a vampire. I prefer just "bedside table." To answer the last part of that question, my garbage is filled with shredded paper. I really don't create that much clutter.

What do I wear on my feet? Well, around the apartment when I don't have guests, I tend to wander around in my slippers. When I have guests, I wear my dress shoes. No matter what, though, I always wear white socks, instead of black dress socks like you're supposed to. Why? Well, I wear those black turtlenecks under my suit jackets for a reason, which is that morbidity I developed. But I feel that wearing all black is bad for you. So my white socks are a symbol of faint hope. Buried, hidden, trodden on, but still there.

The smells of my childhood kitchen seems a little far afield, but lemon detergent is the one I associate with it. Ms. Lee, the housekeeper, always believed in lemon-scented detergent as the most effective. The room fairly stank of it most of the time. Needless to say, I tried to avoid _eating_ in the kitchen.

From that to spring cleaning and what's easy to throw out. I don't have clutter. If I have something, I have it for a good reason. I don't have much lying about, but I wouldn't throw out any of it…well, that spear only brings back memories of a _major_ mistake, but that's a good reason to keep it. I think I'll hang it on a wall so I don't stake myself on it accidentally though. Better, I'll get a ghoul and then get him or her to hang it on the wall for me.

Oh my. This is an amusing question. So amusing I think I'll let you read it. The answer should be pretty obvious. "It's Saturday at noon. What are you doing? Give details. If you're eating breakfast, what exactly are you eating? If you're stretching out in the backyard to sun, what kind of blanket or towel are you lying on?"

I believe I'm sleeping, shut away from any possibility of letting the sun touch me until dark. That seems like a good way to end this, since I'm sick of these ridiculous questions, and they apply less and less to vampires after this. So that's it for now. But it's been fun doing this.

I am Alex Smith, and I am a vampire. And this is the tale of me. Perhaps someday I will reopen this story. But for now, my tale is done.


	3. The Origins of the Kindred

**The Origins of the Kindred**

Alexander Smith

Many theories and neo-religious doctrines abound as to the origin of the Kindred, all of which are heavily biased by what the believers _want_ to be true. For the purpose of this entry, I will expound on my own bias. I am a relatively open-minded evangelical Christian, a Camarilla member in good standing. I am a supporter of the Intelligent Design theory as far as the mortals go. I am a Ventrue, and I know my clan's shortcomings: we see ourselves completely above the mortals, which is no surprise since we are so capable of controlling them. I have had exposure to three basic theories of our origin: the Caine theory, the Setite theory, and the Evolutionist theory, and I am a supporter of none of these, although the Caine theory is more appealing to me than the other two.

The idea that we evolved at some point from humanity is often proposed, and while it seems simple and possible to an extent, we must then come to the fact that there _is_ such a thing as the supernatural, that many of our kind have abilities that are truly supernatural. For instance, the abilities of Dominate and Presence may be just subconsciously controlled manifestations of extreme hypnotism and mesmerism, but what of the Lasombra shadow abilities, or the Tremere magicks, or the Giovanni Necromancy? They cannot be so easily explained. How did we get here? We're rather an evolutionary dead-end, you must realize. We reproduce using the bodies of another species, we feed from that same species and _each other_, we do not breathe, our internal organs have no function with the exception of our hearts and brains. We are _dead._ We cannot have evolved, but we _exist_—unless you really want to discuss nihilistic theory in the middle of this.

If you take the Setite point of view, we're all the creations of the Egyptian god Sutekh, aka Set. The _dead _god Set. The Followers of Set are his children, and the rest of the Clans were apparently created to "serve" this dark power and his favored ones when he is resurrected by the faithful efforts of his children. Load of nonsense, if you ask me or any other Ventrue. I mean, _really_, they expect a _Ventrue_ to serve someone of another clan willingly. Not likely. Nonetheless, if by some very odd chance it _does_ happen to be true, I am _not_ looking forward to the Second Coming of Sutekh.

And then there's the Myth of Caine. In Genesis, Cain slew his brother Abel because God liked Abel's gift better, and became the first murderer. For his sins, God condemned him to a horrible fate. According to the Myth of Caine, this fate was to wander forever in the Land of Nod, cursed to never again see the light of day and live forever, drinking of the blood of the mortal. And apparently, Caine got lonely, so he passed the "Curse" on. I think it says he sired three childer, who combined sired a total of thirteen. And these thirteen are the founders of our clans. Right. Then the Flood (yes, Noah's), came and killed all but the strongest vampires…namely, Caine and his childer and grandchilder. The rest died, so they started the clans over. Caine decided to leave the ruling to Ventrue (that's our admittedly biased myth) and Lasombra got jealous and killed him off, but his childer survived. Thus began our little feud. Anyways, that lot was called the Antediluvians, which the Camarilla denies the existence of for some reason that I don't know or care about. To finish, Caine's supposed to have his own Second Coming, where he kills the Kindred who have disappointed him and takes the rest to forgiveness and salvation. Not really looking forward to that one either. On the other hand, this is the one where I actually have a chance, unlike if it turns out that it's Sutekh or Jesus that I have to worry about, so I'd prefer this future to most. Still, I'm going to withhold further opinion, beyond the fact that I think that every theory that I've talked about here is utter bullcrap, and I'm willing to let it go down to a shrug and a "who cares?" Anyways, best of luck to all, whichever Second Coming we get if any.


End file.
